title: Use of interactive teaching methods in tobacco cessation program and examine it by using objective structured clinical exam.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Tobacco addiction is an important public health issue. It is important for health professional to counsel the tobacco users for cessation.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To enhance communication skills of MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery) students in counseling of tobacco users by using interactive teaching methods and examine it by using OSCE.
  
  
  METHODS
  It was a before and after comparison study. Communication skills of students were examined by standardized patients (investigators) by objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) method before and after intervention. All the students were trained to enhance the communication skills by role play, interactive session, anecdotes. Statistical analysis was done by using Paired t-test.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The difference in scores at all the 3 stations before and after the intervention and also global scores before and after the intervention was statistically highly significant (P = 0.0001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Communication skills of students in counseling tobacco users improved after they were given role play, interactive session, anecdotes. Similar model can be used to improve the communication/counseling skills in other important health hazards.
authors.affiliation: Department of Community Medicine, Smt. Kashibai Navale Medical College, Pune, Maharashtra, India.
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Fernandez
authors.forename: Harshal T
authors.initials: HT
authors.lastname: Pandve
authors.forename: Dhrubajyoti J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Debnath
keywords: Communication skills; counseling; medical students; objective structured clinical exam; tobacco users